This year, the prize of EUR 5,000 went to Dr Anna Bizer for her dissertation entitled "Personality Violation in Social Media - Questions of Applicable Law". The thesis, which was awarded "summa cum laude", is dedicated to a scientifically demanding and economically highly relevant complex.  

Twitter, Facebook , YouTube, WhatsApp etc. have fundamentally changed the way we communicate with each other. By commenting, "sharing" content, linking or "tagging" other people, the publication can quickly be made accessible to a broad mass, conversely, control over the published content can easily slip away. The manner of communication in social media is therefore of decisive importance for the civil liability of platform operators as well as private users.  

The conflict between an understanding shaped by national law and a global communication space detached from national borders on the other hand is an expression of one of the greatest challenges of digitalisation.  

Dr Anna Bizer has thus made a highly topical and practical subject her task and is a worthy winner of the Rudolf Haufe Prize, entirely in the spirit of the founder.

Doctoral theses from the faculties of law and economics at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg can be nominated for the Young Researcher Award. For the selection of the winning dissertation, the practical relevance and the reference to topics of the Haufe Group are decisive. A board of trustees consisting of a representative of the rector, the two deans of the faculties and a representative of the Haufe Group selects the winner from the submitted theses. This year, Miron Schneckenberger, team leader at COS CPC, a lawyer and also an alumnus of the University of Freiburg, was again involved on behalf of the Haufe Group.